


Some Things We Don't Talk about

by quentintarrantino



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, post Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentintarrantino/pseuds/quentintarrantino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond has trouble adjusting after M's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Things We Don't Talk about

Bond liked to watch movies when he was home. Movies that had no plot, where the characters ran around the screen for two hours and he just had to sit and watch. It was like a trainwreck to him, destined to fail but he was unable to turn away, they were empty pits people tossed money into and this was a comfort to him, that was what normal people did didn’t they? Watched these empty movies. He supposed they did it to avoid the fact that they were bleaker than the film, Bond carried no whimsical fantasies that he was greater than he really was and although he had seen more than most in their lives he still felt just as grey as the next.

The clock told him it was too early to be up, he should be in bed but he never quite made it there. The sleek design of the flat he was sitting in made him feel just uncomfortable enough to remain awake. Q’s area was in the far corner where a laptop sat with overflowing piles of paperwork. A stack of DVDs were stationed next to his spot on the sofa and he didn’t remember falling asleep but when he opened his eyes it was light out and the wiry man was nowhere to be seen which led him to believe he may have gone out to get something to eat.

They were ships passing in the night on days like this, they were ominously referred to as the ‘bad days’. The days where it was all he could do to sit up and get himself to the kitchen to eat, where when Q walked back into the living room he would see him staring with glazed eyes at the ceiling. They did not touch they did not speak and when Bond was good and ready he would come back to the land of the living. It was akin to having a ghost in the house the Quartermaster supposed but he said nothing, he was good at living in silence and the bad days were few and far between.

\--

The storm sounds too much like gunshots at midnight when he is jolted awake by flashing lights and claps of thunder. His gun is in his hand before the body beside him can stir awake and Q has learned his lesson to stay silent and in their bed. Once previous during a particularly nasty instance Q had left the safety of the bedroom to investigate what had ruffled Bond so, James outline was visible with another strobe of the lightning and he didn’t have time to open his mouth to ask what was wrong when he felt hands around his neck and the world was suddenly going horizontal. A gun barrel was to his throat and he heard the sounds of heavy breathing, the look in James’s eyes were not his own, 007 had taken over.

Upon realizing his mistake he had recoiled as if shocked, pulling him up and apologizing, he did not go back to bed but slept on the floor. In the morning nasty bruises coated the thin man’s skin, the faint outline of choking hands visible and everyone at MI6 said nothing but they knew, the way Bond refused to look at his counterpart until the blemishes had faded into obscurity.

When he reached for Q he would flinch involuntarily a week afterwards.

\--

He remembers Skyfall too well, the smell of the burning house and the way M’s body felt bleeding out in his arms. The sound of the helicopter landing and the agents flooding in, all speaking so loudly, their voices echoing against the stone in the chapel. He wanted to yell at them to shut up, couldn’t they see what this was, what was going on here? The blood on his hands was drying, it felt sticky and hot, he wondered if they would notice if he walked back down to the pond and fell in. If he swam to the bottom and tried to wash M’s blood off his hands would it stay?

They took her away from him, the one thing tethering him to something in this world and they put her in a body bag. They were all just flesh in the end, something that could be killed, he expected more ceremony for her but there was none. She would be carted off and put in the ground just like he would someday. Amongst the crowd of somber faced agents there he was, Bond almost didn’t recognize him without the cardigan. A bullet proof vest in place and a thick jacket to shield against the cold, glasses slightly skewed from the woolen hat he was wearing, Q still looked so thin. They stared at each other from across the way as people tried to pull James up off the floor, calling him by his number hoping to snap him out of the trance he was in.

Q said nothing, lips in a firm line as they dragged Bond out to the helicopter and strapped him in, the blood glistened in the yellow light of inferno that was Skyfall. He thought he had at least some control of himself but he didn’t, he yanked away to vomit into the underbrush, a soothing hand he couldn’t place was on his back. Soundlessly he allowed himself to be buckled again. He wondered if the blood would stain his hands, he thought about how far a fall it would be if he were to just drop out of the helicopter. He felt Q’s eyes on him and he met the gaze, something was pressed onto his lap and he looked to see the slender fingers holding a towel for the blood.

\--

He sees M frequently in his dreams, just out of reach always. He wakes up screaming until his ears ring. This used to scare the Quartermaster but not anymore, he has become accustomed to it and now he knows just what to do. With soothing murmurs that cannot be heard over the beating of Bond’s heart hands will always clamp around his shoulders. Not real not real not real… the mantra goes on and on in a rhythm that acts like a lullaby to bring him back to sleep.

The councilor that MI6 has made him see tells him to assemble an arsenal of calming things that can help him find himself in the event something like this happens. He makes a list in his head he runs over when the thoughts of what has come to pass overwhelm. The small smile he receives in the morning from Q as he drinks his tea, the smell of their freshly washed sheets at night, the subtle curve of the Quartermaster’s back in the moonlight after a particularly satisfying lovemaking session. It’s these things he plays back until they blur when he is by himself.

\--

The shower is hot and it runs over Bond’s body like a much needed massage. He can close his eyes and lean against the wall and he pretends he is submerged. He will turn the water up so high when he gets out his back is an angry red and then he will stare at himself in the mirror and wonder what kind of monster is staring back. It’s not uncommon for him to spend an hour or two in the steamy bathroom, Q is patient on these ‘bad days’ with him. Whenever he gets out there’s always a warm mug of coffee for him.

They say that every agent experiences these feelings and perhaps it took Skyfall to unlock them. Nothing shameful they tell him, feeling guilt is part of the job. Bond wonders if this is the job for him still.

\--

The knife cuts him and he bleeds, he bleeds like she did and he wonders at his wound. The same substance is trickling from his forearm but in mass amounts he too will die. He asks himself if this is such a bad thing to do, dying. He read somewhere that it was just like falling asleep. The terrorist holding the knife leers at him with his ugly smile but seems confused that James puts up no fight. This must not be the fearsome 007 he was warned about; maybe he has the wrong man?

They send in backup to rescue him of course and his life is spared for another day, when he gets off the plane once touching down in England Q is on the tarmac, wearing the same jacket he wore that night at Skyfall, hair blowing in the cold gusts of winter wind as the tall man watches the agent start toward him. He is beat up, cuts and scrapes everywhere and Q raises one white immaculate hand over a nasty gash, Bond leans into his touch and the Quartermaster looks troubled but says nothing. Sometimes it seems on days like this all they ever say is nothing.

\--

They make love. Q becomes soft and pliant under his hand when the mood strikes him, he allows himself to be pinned, his eyes hold the challenge however as he urges Bond on. Pants and groans lead the way to a climax so riveting the Quatermaster’s lips tremble, fighting back a whimper. James knows what he is capable of, this submissive man below him, he knows on a good day it would be Bond that is beneath him, begging and pleading for his hand.

Such exertions seem to suck the life out of him and he falls to the mattress, sticklike arms wind around him and he closes his eyes and goes limp. It seems his partner’s patience is infinite and he never tells him he is thankful but it appears he knows already. Behind his lids he sees the image of a naïve young man standing against the backdrop of a burning house in Scotland, watching him with a grim gaze as he is helped of a chapel.

Of course with bad there is also good, he adds every happy moment, every smile, every kiss to his list of things that make him happy. He remembers each so vividly, he handles them with extreme care, just now he tucked the image of a spent Q, his chest heaving and his cheeks bright red as he comes down from his orgasm into his brain to be revisited. He suspects he’s falling in love and this is a dangerous thing but he hasn’t the energy or the will to burn this bridge.

\--

It seems bizarre that there was a time when Q was not with him, somewhere in his life. This man has become such an essential part of his daily life the notion that he at one point had to get on by himself is ridiculous. He develops a fondness and desire to protect this person that he hasn’t known since balling his fists around his mother’s skirts. Since he had held a dying M in his arms.

They call him a liability, his Quartermaster. They tell him that if Q is in any way compromised that he must not forget his duty to his country, he says that they are idiots if they think that man has any emotional influence on him. The man who looks so very sad on the days James Bond can do nothing but stare at a wall with dead eyes, when James Bond is reduced to a shivering mess and its all he can do to hold him together.

The agent asks himself if there was anything he wouldn’t do to ensure Q stayed alive and he isn’t surprised when the answer is no. He would put a bullet through anyone, and this he knows at some point will turn into a problem, he can’t deal with another death like M’s, especially if it means there will be no Q to put him back into one piece afterwards.

\--

The week after Skyfall Q would find himself in James Bond’s flat. He had been charged with checking up on him to ensure he was eating and carrying on alright. The man was a wreck and it seemed he was made of glass. A troublesome sight if he had ever seen one, he left that day after only staying five minutes.

Next week he would stay for two hours, both saying nothing but staring levelly at each other, a conversation with their gazes. The things the pair of eyes opposite to him had seen was unnerving only slightly, Q hid his feelings well for someone of his age, Bond admired that about him.

The staring matches would continue long after that day, weeks and months would pass with assignments coming and going for the agent until after a particularly worrisome set of bad days Q would absentmindedly pat his hand and his own would end up staying there, their fingers winding together. Bond’s glance is shrewd and mischievous and it’s a breath of life into his normally cold exterior.

\--

“Thank you.” Words are few and far between in the early stages of their relationship, when one speaks its usually for something important. Q lays on Bond’s bed, hair sticking up in strange directions as he looks up at James who is hovering over him, both are wearing nothing but the night cloaks them.

“For what?” the Quartermaster’s reply is cracked with lust and the haze that comes with this strange affair.

“The towel for the blood.” A confusing expression of gratitude, Q thinks to himself but then he runs out of thinking room as pleasure overtakes. Little would he know it might’ve been that worn out recycled towel found in the back of the helicopter that kept Bond rooted to planet Earth.


End file.
